Mixed reaction to Obama's gun control measures at trade show

By Justin Berton :
January 16, 2013

LAS VEGAS — President Barack Obama's wide-ranging package for curbing firearms violence, highlighted by proposals to ban assault weapons and high-capacity gun magazines, was met with a mix of anger and grudging support at the world's largest gun trade show Wednesday.

But mostly, it was anger.

“All the law-abiding gun owners paid a price today for what happened in Newtown,” said Jeff Cahill of Tucson, Ariz., owner of Tango Down, which makes components for assault weapons including magazines that can hold as many as 30 rounds.

“Everything he wants to do is focused on limiting the rights of law-abiding gun owners,” Cahill said, “and nothing is focused on stopping criminals.”

Cahill's sentiments were echoed throughout the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas, where an estimated 60,000 people have gathered this week to sell and purchase guns and related items.

On Wednesday, Obama asked Congress to ban assault weapons and ammunition magazines that carry more than 10 rounds, and to require background checks for purchasers in nearly all gun transactions.

Many conventioneers applauded the idea of closing the “gun show loophole,” under which people who aren't buying from a federally licensed dealer don't have to go through an FBI background check for disqualifying criminal offenses or mental illness.

“Nobody here wants people who shouldn't have guns to get them,” said John Gross of New Berlin, Wis., owner of American Defense Manufacturing, which makes accessories for assault weapons. “Gun checks are good; only people who can legitimately own them should own guns.”

Chappell Harris of Charlotte, N.C., who makes fabrics that cover bullet-resistant vests, said he also supported Obama's declaration that nothing in health-privacy laws prevents mental health professionals from alerting authorities about patients who may be violent threats.

The president said the Department of Health and Human Services was sending a letter to health care providers saying as much.

And that was where support for Obama's plan stopped: among retailers of weapons that would be outlawed if Congress approved the major elements of the president's package.

Cahill said he didn't think there was much chance Congress would go along, but that even the renewed talk of gun control had prompted a run on semiautomatic rifles and magazines that can hold scores of rounds.

After the Newtown killings, Cahill said, his business “exploded.”

One of his employees estimated that Tango Down sold two months of inventory in the 48 hours after the massacre.

“If these bans go into effect, it'll be just like Prohibition,” Cahill predicted. “The bad guys will get rich and the scale of crime will only go up.”

Morris Peterson, president and CEO of Ashbury Precision Ordnance in Charlottesville, Va., described himself as one of “the few black gun manufacturers in the U.S.” Peterson grew up in Cleveland and now makes tactical rifles that Obama is seeking to outlaw.

“When it gets outside the inner city, it suddenly becomes 'America's problem,'” Peterson said. “Do ethnic minorities deserve protection just as Middle America does? Why hasn't this become an issue until now? It seems there are societal ills we need to address first.”